I think I wasn't having an issue with a wire edge, since the sharpness itself wasn't falling off as much as the bite was, which I have learned is very different from actual sharpness.
Expected edge retention/how to tell you're sharpening correctly
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I will be very interested to hear your experiences when you break it out and see how it does, and I'd bet I'm not the only one who would love to hear that story.
When my knife loses it's bite I'll try a few strokes on the Arkansas and update results. Now that I think about it, I think I may have a Dan's hard Arkansas and a not a soft, but regardless I want to try it out.
Edit: it is, in fact, a soft.
I've found the soft is easier to use for touch ups. You need less precision, is a little more forgiving than a hard ark.
Stropping has always reduced tooth/bite for me. I've never found a way to make it help that, but I'm no pro, but I have the same experience. For what it's worth I think Jon Broida isn't a huge fan for the same reason.
Stropping has always reduced tooth/bite for me. I've never found a way to make it help that, but I'm no pro, but I have the same experience. For what it's worth I think Jon Broida isn't a huge fan for the same reason.
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I'd tend to say, with my limited experience with Arks, the soft ones allow an easier catch of the bevel. But much depends on the stone's finish: for grasping a burr a glossy stone is almost useless. I keep the Belgian Blue I use for the same purpose slightly rough with an Atoma.
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Honestly if you want a knife that will hold up a bit longer I think getting something from a maker like @Troopah_Knives or @Deadboxhero could be a good choice.
Otherwise. Check your edges under a microscope to truly make sure you aren't leaving an extremely small burr behind. That can give the illusion of a sharp edge, then quickly fold over in use.
Otherwise. Check your edges under a microscope to truly make sure you aren't leaving an extremely small burr behind. That can give the illusion of a sharp edge, then quickly fold over in use.
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Vadim Kraichuk’s short book on knife deburring is eye-opening… it really expanded my mental model for what’s going on down at those last few microns. A proper edge will stand up to perpendicular use well beyond your intuition. The challenge is building that proper edge.
Knife Deburring 6th edition: Science behind the lasting razor edge - Kindle edition by Kraichuk, Vadim. Crafts, Hobbies & Home Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Knife Deburring 6th edition: Science behind the lasting razor edge - Kindle edition by Kraichuk, Vadim. Crafts, Hobbies & Home Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
I've been able to get an edge that will last a few services, but after that, it'll start to catch and not cleanly go through thin bell pepper skins. Basically everything else, it'll still handle fine. I've started carrying a ceramic homing rod, and a couple of strokes is enough to bring back enough bite to go through the skins easily once again, and that'll retain for another day. Touch ups are easy, too, just a few alternating edge leading strokes on a 3k cerax and quick deburring process just to make sure I have a clean edge. I check for burr removal by running through edge grain wood, and the improvement in technique is evident from the lack of dark metal caught in the wood, whereas earlier on I would see a dark discoloration where the wire edge was being stripped off. I also check the edge with a loupe, but that seems pretty unnecessary. I can cut circles in receipt paper, get curls off a hair follicle, etc and it's only a couple of minutes touching up, so I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. I did try the Arkansas soft, and while it gave me even more bite, it was also a pain to use because i have a tiny ass stone. The edge also seems to last longer on a 3k, but that could just be me not getting used to the novaculite.
If I were to guess this sounds a lot more like a blade geometry issue than a deburring issue I would take a very careful look at all of the blade geometry and bevel sizes and see if you notice any themes
Hm. Do you think I'm sharpening at too low of an angle overall? I can try to upload some pics of the knives in question, too. My blades range from lasers to 200g+ fairly chunky sanjo grinds. By bevel size, you mean the edge bevel and not the blade road I'm assuming.
I can definitely get 2-3 shifts of heavier prep out 52100, before I feel like the edge has degraded enough to debate touching it up. 4-6 shifts and there's no debate.
Z-wear is a whole other league (I'm going on 1.5 weeks without a touch up).
Z-wear is a whole other league (I'm going on 1.5 weeks without a touch up).
Zdp and R2 are other good standards for "I don't want to sharpen often but also don't want to sharpen with diamonds". I only have one of each so I can't comment on brand. My only home petty is R2, gets used daily, and loses tomato-cutting teeth every 4-6 months. It's a pain to deburr well, but worth the effort. I've not sharpened my zdp ever in 3 years, but it doesn't get used a ton. In my kitchen, AS and 52100 get about 2 weeks of use before I want to touch them up to get teeth back on, if I'm prepping dinner for the family every night. That's assuming Thai food with plenty of woody herbs several nights, 4k edge.
I think a low sharpening angle is nice, if you're not rocking and twisting, or cutting too brutally. If.you're not chipping and breaking the edge under normal use, then it's not too obtuse, and the more acute the better for what you're looking for.
I think a low sharpening angle is nice, if you're not rocking and twisting, or cutting too brutally. If.you're not chipping and breaking the edge under normal use, then it's not too obtuse, and the more acute the better for what you're looking for.
Larrins article on loss.of.sharpness from abrasion has some compelling thoughts on sharpening angle. Granted he's not using tomatoes. Cutting card stock is a different cutting task, so keep.context in mind, but still.a very nice way to think of different factors affecting edge retention and cutting ability. Whatever those words mean to you.
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/18/maximizing-edge-retention/
https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/06/18/maximizing-edge-retention/
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I also read Larrins’s article and started to sharpen at lower angle. It improved the edge retention of my white steels by a lot. Previously I was sharpening at about 15 degree per side but now for white and blue steels I would do 8-10 degree per side.
It really hard to say. This could easily be a too low or too high problem. Too low and it's possible that your apexes are rolling after the first use. Too high and the amount of material that needs to be abraded for the edge to feel dull is dramatically reduced. It could also just be the knives, wide secondary bevels can easily get rounded which reduces edge retention, and knives that are thick behind the edge really lean on their edge sharpness to cut well. Or it could be your sharpening in general and your Ginsan knife is simply a lot thinner behind the edge so it cuts well regardless.
The ginsan is the thickest behind the edge, so I don't think that's the case. The first image is my Kato, second is a tsunehisa AUS10. At this point, I'm getting fairly similar edge retention out of all of them in terms of actual sharpness at the edge, as far as I can tell. I'm bad at taking choil shots and I know that it doesn't show everything, but for now this is what I got.
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Really? I've only sharpened one example of r2. And it was a customers knife, but that was one of the best edges with the smallest amount of effort I had to put in a while at the time. I didn't even bother using compound to strop it, which for me is very rare, because I get impatient with deburring sometimes.
And yeah. This is what I was getting at when I mentioned those two fine makers. Steels like cruwear, 4v, magnacut (probably best because knives loose sharpness through corrosion also), s110v, 10v, and the list goes on, will probably give the kind of edge retention that I would think is going to be at the top of the list for people doing shifts in a kitchen.
Since troopah mentioned it in his post on instagram, aebl if it's hard enough will likely do better as well.
If I didn't enjoy sharpening and buying knives, I would care more about touching up every few days, but honestly I enjoy sharpening a lot and I'll take coworkers' and friends' knives to sharpen for them. This was a worthwhile thread for me to start, I learned a lot and probably will learn more.
Like I said I only have one so
♂I have heard a bunch of people say they're easy and I've been tempted to try another to found out if I'm nuts or not (probably yes)
Well for me it's the same situation. It was only one knife, I've sharpened in that steel.Like I said I only have one so
I have heard a bunch of people say they're easy and I've been tempted to try another to found out if I'm nuts or not (probably yes)
I really want to remember who made the knife. It was a very nice knife I remeber that. It might have been musashi. But I really can't say 100%, whoever it was killed it on the ht.
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Cheap stainless will really get you to up your sharpening game. And test your patience.
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Doesn't correspond to my experience. The best edge retention I can get is with a very thin blade combined with a very conservative edge that adds a lot to the edge's stability, especially with AS.
Can confirm. That or any Damascus blade labeled from "pakastan".
This sounds like, assuming no wire edge and such, that your edge dulls due to chipping or deformation/rolling when you lower the angle. In such a case conservative angle would improve edge retantuon. As long as your edge doesn't chip or deform, lower angle would increase edge retantion.
I have used a few Shiro Kamo's in R2, easy to sharpen and very nice/easy to deburr. My current petty is in R2 (perfect for a petty) and it is a ***** to deburr????Like I said I only have one so
I have heard a bunch of people say they're easy and I've been tempted to try another to found out if I'm nuts or not (probably yes)
I wonder how much of this is cutting technique? I sharpen my Nakiri in 52100 maybe once a month and honestly that may even only be a couple of edge leading passes on a 2k stone. My brother in law used that knife for 2 meals after a fresh edge and it was destroyed. Flat spots, micro chipping all along the edge etc. I had to do a fairly in depth full progression and removed a burr that looked like a black thick hair the length of the blade. Its been about a month of 3-4 meals a week and the edge is still perfect in my hands. Dont discount how you cut, do you scrape hard across the board sideways, do you twist etc. My wife rock chops, her knife only dulls at the last 1/3rd of the belly right where the knife rocks.
I have pretty good cutting habits, I rock for mincing herbs but that's pretty much it. I use a bench scraper so I never scrape with the blade, no twisting, etc. The one time I've ever had microchipping was with a factory burnished edge through bacon that had a frozen spot in it.
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In general, yes. Simply because a thicker edge requires more force, resulting in a harder contact with the board. In the case I had in mind, this isn't the case. The backbevel is sharpened to zero. The edge itself is what a lot of people would call a micro-bevel — technically it is not, due to the absence of a secondary bevel. This is how I dealt with very poor poly boards in a welfare kitchen that dulled all other knives, especially soft carbons, as far as I could see by simple abrasion, and stainless ones by microchipping. The AS was in the 64Rc range.
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